SBF gives its backing to Scottish Water restructuring

THE Scottish Building Federation today backed calls for Scottish Water to be restructured and for the savings made to be ploughed into more investment to boost the construction sector.

The federation, which represents more than 700 companies in Scotland, said it was “no longer tenable” for Scottish Water to retain its status as the only entirely publicly owned and funded water utility in the UK.

SBF chief executive Michael Levack said: “Whether via mutualisation or some other means, restructuring the ownership and funding of Scottish Water will generate significant savings to the public purse.”

Annual savings to the Scottish budget from allowing Scottish Water to raise funds on the private markets have been estimated at anywhere between 180 million and 360m.

Levack argued that any money saved from restructuring the utility should be ploughed back into a reinforced programme of capital investment in Scotland’s water infrastructure.

The federation was responding to an initial call for contributions to the Scottish Independent Budget Review to help prioritise public spending amid Scottish budget cuts of some 1 billion a year between 2011 and 2014.

Last week, a major independent report said ministers should remove Scottish Water from the public sector because they may soon be unable to afford the multi-million pound cost of repairing the country’s antiquated network.

• A new joint venture between Scottish Water and a consortium made up of Veolia Water, Laing O’Rourke and Jacobs has been formally launched to deliver more than 450m of the utility’s new capital investment programme.

The joint venture will deliver projects during the 2010-15 investment programme which will see 2.5bn spent on water and waste water treatment facilities and infrastructure.